


Geek of Magic

by jlluh



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-11 09:37:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18427895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jlluh/pseuds/jlluh
Summary: Harry Potter is a geek, a nerd, a total dork whose favorite hobby is "transfiguring stuff." He doesn't understand what rules are, has no social skills, is barely sentient, and is very smart.





	1. Chapter 1

Harry Potter sat in the Gryffindor common room, changing a needle back and forth.

Silver, to wood. Wood, to silver. Needle to matchstick to needle to matchstick to needle. He sipped water to refresh a throat dry from whispering the incantation again and again.

Though nothing next to what he'd seen professors do, it was unspeakably cool, and he was the one doing it.

Not very useful though, unless he had a match and needed a needle, and had a needle—a silver needle, at that — and needed to start a fire.

Needle to toothpick. That should be easy, except he didn't know the incantation, and he could probably find it in his book somewhere, it had pages and pages of lists, but he didn't have the patience.

The general incantation for turning an inanimate object into a different one was inanimata reformandam, and while it was supposedly much harder to use a general incantation, it sounded easier than going through the book looking for the specific incantation and then having to memorize it.

To use a general incantation, you had to really know what you wanted.

Harry wanted a toothpick.

On the fourth try, he got one. It was splintery, discolored and not sharp enough, but that was mended with a few more attempts.

Harry picked a corn kernel out of his teeth. From lunch.

Toothpick to silver needle to matchstick, using only inanimata reformandam all the while. The shapes of the match and toothpick were so close he didn't need to alter his wand movement at all.

He tried changing it into an iron needle, but only got a failed partial transformation to silver.

Harry opened his transfiguration textbook. Visualization was only half of it. Wand movements mattered, and more reading than he wanted to do indicated that iron was one of the harder metals to transfigure, and adding carbon to it to make steel just made it harder.

Copper was much easier. Barely harder than silver. Make the turn of the wand a little broader, use a softer flick, visualize the copper, imagining what it was. A few tries and he had a copper needle. Copper to wood. Wood to copper. Copper to wood to copper to wood to silver to wood to silver to copper to wood.

He could feel the magic coming down his arm and sloshing through his wand, and you were supposed to be able to feel how the sloshing in the wand for one spell was different than for the other, and he thought he could, but it was so slight, and his magic so roughly felt, that he might have been imagining it.

No matter. Copper needle to tin needle, to wooden matchstick.

Speaking of which. He scraped the head of the match against the rough stone of the fireplace, and the match lit. He turned it upside down, the fire climbing up, and let it fall upon the hearth when his fingers got too hot.

He didn't even know what the red stuff at the tip of the matchstick was, and it had still worked.

He'd taken the matchstick from class, so maybe it had been a matchstick from the start, and remembered how to be one. He took a twig from his bag — he'd scooped up a few on his way to the dorm — broke off a third so it would be likesized, and tried turning that into a matchstick.

That didn't work, and after the briefest possible consultation with his textbook, he decided the problem was that twigs were unworked wood, and after a few more minutes of skimming, came to a conclusion about how the wand movement ought to change.

The twig lit on fire. Harry put it out by dropping his textbook on it. There was some point to leather covers after all.

Harry spent a little longer skimming what the book had to say about what wand movements to use for what properties, and he ended up with an ugly, knobby matchstick.

Changing it back to a twig was easy — it wanted to be a twig. Twig to matchstick to twig to matchstick, doing it a little better each time, adjusting the wand movements by feel, a process that reminded him of the time he'd tried riding Dudley's skateboard.

Ron tugged his shoulder, "Harry, it's time for dinner."

"Okay. Have fun."

"Let's go."

"I'll be down later. Start without me."

Ron grumbled, but his stomach rumbled, and he left, the common room emptying.

Harry managed a matchstick he was happy with, scraped it against the rough stone of the fireplace, and the match lit.

He dropped it on the hearth next to the other, watching it burn.

Harry hadn't exactly read his textbooks, but he'd paid attention during the lecture, and Professor McGonagall had explained that in magic, objects weren't defined by what they were made of so much as by their relationships to other objects. Matchsticks were used to start fires. Playing with them was fun, but you weren't supposed to. The stuff at the end had a smell that to him was part of the smell of fire, and though he'd heard or read that they smelled like rotten eggs, he didn't know what rotten eggs smelled like.

That was enough. That was what magic wanted to know, not the list of chemicals a chemist would produce. Even for wizard-raised children, it was hard to accept the fundamental non-materialism of magic, but Harry was nothing if not flexible.

"Cool," said Harry, and drew another twig from his bag. He ran through different metals, managing iron eventually, though it took a lot out of him

He gave gold a try, and it was as impossible as his textbook said.

He didn't even notice the other Gryffindors came back in from dinner.

Ron tugged his shoulder again. "Harry. Harry. Harry."

Harry looked up.

"You missed dinner."

Harry shrugged. "Time flies when you're having fun." Uncle Vernon often said that while locking Harry in the cupboard. "I really have to pee."

Harry jogged for the loo. He'd been aware of the need for a while, but it had felt very distant till Ron had got his attention. That had felt like very much like waking up.

Comfortable once more, he returned to the table he'd been at. He'd sat down to experiment around three in the afternoon, and it was, what, seven-thirty now, and he hadn't done any of his homework. When was it due anyway? He should find that out.

The twig was busy being a piece of copper wire. He bent it, transfigured it into a twig, had a bent twig, turned it back into a wire, worked it around with his hands into curlicues and knots, and turned it back into a twig.

The twig was thicker and shorter than the wire, and all those little twists and curlicues couldn't work. Luckily, rather than breaking into little pieces, the twig had fused into itself. He turned it silver, thought it looked pretty cool, set it aside, and took out another twig.

He tried to turn it into a bent wire from the get go, but it broke. He checked the book, and it had too much to say about shape for him to consider wading through. Better to just ask someone.

"Hey, Hermione."

He hardly knew anything about the bushy-haired girl, except she answered all the questions in class, she'd transformed her matchstick even sooner than he had, she was always reading, and Ron thought she was really annoying.

Harry was used to Dudley Dursley. Next to that, Hermione was great.

She looked up from her book and smiled with just her lips, in a way that suggested she wasn't sure how to smile and worried that she wasn't doing it right.

Harry didn't notice. He hadn't yet reached the point of worrying about how to smile. He motioned her over and said, "I want to transform this twig so it has a different shape. I can make it a little thinner or longer or whatnot easily enough, but anything more is causing me problems."

Hermione said, "Obviously. We haven't learned that yet."

"Yeah, you know how to do it? It's in the book, right?"

"You can't experiment on your own. It's dangerous."

Harry gave her a rundown of what he'd been doing for the past few hours, Hermione growing increasingly upset as he went along. "That's not allowed. You'll get in trouble. What if someone saw?"

Harry thought lots of people had probably seen, but none had cared.

"And there's no way the match really worked."

Harry made another one and showed her that it really worked. Hermione began to mutter. "You don't understand it. I don't understand it. Horrible things could happen. Didn't you hear McGonagall talking about safety?"

"A little. At the time, I was thinking about elves, mostly. Ron says there's something called house-elves, but Ron says they don't do archery — they don't sound at all like elves from books except they have weird magic and pointy ears. Apparently, there's a lot at Hogwarts, but I haven't seen any yet."

He rifled through the book again, saw a sentence about how shaping ought to be a separate movement from changing the material, so he tried that based totally on intuition, but all that happened was his fingers got a little warm where he held his wand.

"I'll call a prefect if you don't stop."

Harry paused. "Would the prefect help?"

Hermione drew herself up. "They'd make you stop. They'd take points. You're not supposed to be doing this. It's against the rules."

Living with the Dursleys, Harry had learned that whatever he did might or might not be against the rules, depending on his relatives' mood. He did avoid doing anything that would put them in a bad mood, but he accepted the state of having broken the rules as an unfortunate but uncontrollable phenomenon, like bad weather.

Harry said, "Thanks, I'll keep it secret." He needed a private space, just his own. A cupboard maybe.

"No," said Hermione, horrified. "That's even worse. You'll hurt yourself. If you were going to break the rules, you'd be better off doing it in the common room, so people could help you. But you shouldn't break the rules."

"Okay, I won't break the rules," said Harry. He wasn't exactly lying. It was just that he was used to expressing agreement whenever anyone spoke forcefully. Aunt Petunia called it being respectful.

He waited for Hermione to leave, but she didn't seem minded to, so after a bit he returned to his spell casting.

"Hey, you said you wouldn't."

"And for a minute, I didn't."

Hermione crossed her arms and hmmpped. "I really will get a prefect if you don't stop."

Harry blinked. He didn't understand this girl. She was telling him what to do, but she wasn't yelling at him or cuffing him on the back of his head or anything. Harry said, "I don't care what the others say, I think you're very nice."

Hermione's facial muscles warred between pleasure and upset, settling finally on exasperation. She said, "You are a very strange boy, Harry Potter." And though she didn't help him, she didn't fetch a prefect either.

#

#

After a few days of Hermione steadfastly refusing to tell him whatever he wanted to know, Harry concluded that he was going to actually have to read his Transfiguration textbook. Or most if it, at least. The better chapters, anyway.

He was doing just that when Snape walked into the potions classroom and took five points from Gryffindor as punishment for reading a book from a different class without his table set up properly.

He read to the end of his sentence and put the book away.

The day's potion was another one for curing acne. According to Hermione, personal hygiene was a major part of first-year potions curriculum. He took her word for it. Harry's understanding of potions class was that you looked at the directions on the board and tried not to make too much of a hash of it.

Chopping nettles. Righto. He'd gotten plenty of practice chopping with the Dursleys, but it was boring. Harry had a better idea.

He took out his wand, took a guess as to what the wand movements ought to be, and visualized the desired result.

For a wonder, it worked right on the first try, and all the leaves were perfectly cut, though he wasn't sure why they'd been cut diagonally.

He put his wand away and picked up the cutting board so he could shovel them into the cauldron.

From across the classroom Professor Snape said, "Potter, if you're attempting to kill yourself, choose less flamboyant means."

"Huh?"

"Do NOT put transfigured ingredients into a potion."

"I only cut them," Harry said.

"No, you transfigured a single piece into cut pieces. If you're desperate to find out how that differs, use an abandoned classroom and observe your potion from a safe distance. 15 points from Gryffindor."

Harry felt only brief annoyance at the loss of points. He wasn't sure how the point system worked or what it was for. It had been explained in his vicinity a number of times, but he hadn't paid attention to it yet.

He was more concerned with how transfiguring the nettle into cut pieces could change the characteristics of the nettle. Did they become new and imperfect pieces, just as if he'd transformed paper into cut nettles? Did it interrupt some magical property of the nettles that depended on not being interfered with magically? Did it-"

"Pay attention, Potter. Five points from Gryffindor." With a flick of his wand, Snape removed the transfigured nettle pieces from Harry's table and give him a pile of leaves in their place.

Harry cut them with a knife. Perhaps transfiguring them into a form made them reluctant to lose that form as they stewed in the potion? Or the opposite. Given that transfigured objects tended to revert, might they recombine into a single piece while stewing?

"Potter, I said to pay attention. Five more points from Gryffindor."

Harry paid more attention to cutting the leaves. But not complete attention. If the spell continued to be on the leaves, then you were basically adding a spell to a potion, and that... could be pretty interesting, actually.

#

#

Harry used the levitation charm to drop the leaves in the bubbling potion, then shut the door and watched through the window next to it: the window was why he'd chosen the classroom.

A boom and a flash of purple light, the potion exploded across the room, the cauldron turning into a plant.

Harry shouted, laughed, and ran straight into Filch.

#

#

Professor Snape steepled his fingers, observing the two annoyances occupying his office.

Filch said, "He claims he was following your instructions."

Professor Snape said, "Technically, he was, though it seems the boy can't distinguish between sarcasm and instructions."

Harry said, "I think the cauldron turned into a nettle plant."

"It's likely turned back into a cauldron by now. 10 points from Gryffindor."

Harry said, "Sir, if I transfigured a brick into an ingredient, would the stolidness of the brick moderate the ingredient's interaction with other ingredients?"

Professor Snape said, "It would explode in your face. The ingredient would be lacking properties." A bad idea, but surprisingly not completely without some suggestion of insight. "Potter, what's the difference between wolfsbane and monkshood?"

"I dunno."

"I asked you this on the first day."

"I wasn't paying attention," said Harry Potter.

Professor Snape rubbed his temples. The brat was loud, disruptive, and had no respect for the rules. James Potter reborn, if James Potter were daft. "Detention, Potter."

"But-"

"5 points from Gryffindor."

#

#

Harry had mostly paid attention to the transfiguration lecture, but then McGonagall had started doing maths up on the board, pre-algebra, about what they'd started working on at the end of his muggle school year, and Harry had tuned out, suddenly unsure if Transfiguration was really for him.

The agenda stated that the day's practical exercise was turning a string into a wire, so he pulled a thread off the frayed muggle clothing he wore beneath his robes, sized it up, and turned it into a thin copper wire.

Professor McGonagall said, "Potter. Pay attention, and do not perform magic without my leave. 5 points from Gryffindor."

Harry sighed, put his wand away, stared at the board with unfocused eyes, and fiddled with the copper wire.

It was bright orange currently. Later in class, he'd try producing one with a green patina. Speaking of which, would transfigured copper develop a patina? Would transfigured iron rust? It ought to, shouldn't it, except when you transfigured something, you thought of the properties it ought to have, and those could be almost charms, so might transfigured iron that he'd imagined as rustless be very much like iron that had been charmed to not rust?

To answer any of those questions, he'd have to manage a permanent transformation. Everything he'd made so far had reverted after a few hours, and he didn't understand any of what his book said about it except the 'more power' part.

Stumped by that, Harry drifted into daydreams about saving the school from a giant monster—despite Harry being pre-pubescent, a third-year girl whose clothing kept getting ripped off was deeply involved—and Harry didn't bring his attention back to the class until the lecture had ended and it was time to turn stuff into other stuff.

All the strings appeared on the desks with a wave of McGonagall's wand. McGonagall demonstrated, using the specific incantation, and the students set to it, struggling.

Harry had already done all the struggling, in the common room while Hermione told him to stop being foolish, so he used the general incantation, quickly turning his string into another copper wire, then back into a string. Visualization alone wasn't enough to develop the patina. Hmm. Age plus air. He checked one of the charts in the book, tried a few adjustments to his wand movements, and after a few tries, had a copper wire with a patina.

He thought the changed movement was less important than adding to his visualization an idea of what a patina was.

McGonagall was on the other side of the classroom, helping Hufflepuffs. He put his book on the edge of his desk to provide cover, and turned the wire into iron wire. It snapped into three pieces when he bent it.

He performed the untransfiguration, but that only left him with three pieces of string.

He tried the untransfiguration again, focusing on the three pieces of string becoming a single string, as they'd been at the start.

Small purple flames rose from each of the pieces. Harry jerked back. He'd lost part of his left eyebrow the other day and was growing cautious. He automatically dropped his transfiguration book on the burning string. The scorch marks were accumulating; he needed to learn a charm for putting out fires.

Professor McGonagall appeared behind him. "Potter, two points from Gryffindor. What have I said about attempting what I haven't demonstrated?"

"Don't do it?" Harry guessed.

"Indeed. I appreciate that you're reading ahead, but if you continue to insist on trying what I haven't demonstrated, you will be removed from this classroom and not invited back."

Her voice was stern, but Harry didn't think she sounded too upset.

"But I'm watching, so show me." She dropped a string on his desk.

"Inanimata reformandam," Harry cast, turning the string into a copper wire. Again, into a copper wire with patina.

"The general incantation?" said McGonagall.

Harry shrugged. "Remembering specific incantations seems like a pain."

With McGonagall's permission, he cast reverto, returning wire to a string. That the spell worked didn't please him. It meant that the wire had remembered being a string, and would've returned to being one on its own eventually.

Though also, the fact that it had worked... Harry said, "That which is broken cannot be unbroken?"

McGonagall raised an eyebrow. "Very good. But it can be remade as a whole." She nodded, so he transfigured it into iron wire, broke it into pieces, then, rather than untransfiguring, transfigured the pieces into a whole iron wire.

"Well done," said Professor McGonagall. "What you just did is very similar to the Mending Charm, which you'll start on in charms soon enough. Now, rather than experimenting further, do you feel the flow of the magic moving through your wand?"

He nodded.

"Create the same flow while minimizing your wand movement. If you've truly mastered a spell, you can perform it with a tap or a flick." Not that a first-year could actually manage that, but it should keep the boy productively occupied until class ended.

Harry tried, but couldn't begin to figure out how to get the magic sloshing without moving the wand. Worse than frustrating, it was boring, so after McGonagall had gone to the other side of the classroom, he took a small stick out of his bag.

Suppose he transfigured the stick into a hunk of ice, then the hunk of ice began to melt. Would untransfiguration turn the water back into a stick, or into a layer of melted wood, or set the water on fire, or what?

He looked through the book and found the movement for water and the movement for solids. The cross-reference even had the movement for ice, and also a lot of stuff about heat and where it went that didn't seem worth reading.

"Inanimata reformandam." Didn't work. "Inanimata reformandam. Inanimata reformandam." One the third try, he got a fist sized hunk of ice with pieces of wood scattered through it, and a rush of heat. A bang, a burst of fire, and McGonagall yelled, "Harry Potter!"

#

#

Harry sat on the edge of the hospital bed, looking into a mirror. Madam Pomfrey had fixed the burns easily enough, but she'd declined to restore his eyebrows. They matched though, so that was fine.

Professor McGonagall's shouting had been very informative. He'd hadn't thought to account for the heat, and that'd been made worse by his making the ice as cold as he could instead of just cold enough.

He was a little nervous though, about her threat to ban him from the class. The Dursleys had threatened to kick him out all the time, but something about McGonagall made him think she might actually be serious.

She had given him two weeks of detention and hadn't seemed pleased when he'd told her she'd have to coordinate with Professor Snape, but the Hospital Wing was cool, so it wasn't all bad.

Madam Pomfrey said, "Those potions I gave you after the physical seem to have dealt with the nutrition issues nicely."

Harry nodded absently while Madam Pomfrey muttered about muggle diets and junk food. Most of healing magic seemed to be done with wands and potions, but there was an object on the desk like a bunch of tiny frisbees with horns.

"No touching, Potter."

He drew his hand back.

Harry said, "Do you have something I can clean my glasses with?"

Madam Pomfrey frowned, then slapped herself on the forehead. "I can't seem to keep it in my head that you're basically muggle-born. Potter, do you wear those glasses just because you can't see properly without them?"

Harry nodded. That's what glasses were for. Weren't they? Harry said, "A lot of the Professors wear glasses."

"It is often useful to have a charms receptacle directly in front of one's eyes. Besides which, poor vision due to aging is a different matter from poor vision due simply to a slight deformation of the eyes."

Harry said, "Because aging is breaking, and what is broken cannot be unbroken?"

Madam Pomfrey looked surprised. "That is the core of the problem."

"So you could correct my eyes, and, say, for an older person, you could correct problems that weren't age, maybe even age-related problems, but eyesight failing just because you're getting older and things don't work well, not because of any mechanical failure, you can't fix?"

"We can ameliorate it very extensively—wizarding lifespans are over twice that of muggles—but age catches us all."

She looked at his eyes, cast three spells on them, and gave him a potion. For a wonder, it tasted good. Somewhat like strawberries and sweet potatoes.

"You'll find your vision improved in the morning. Anything else, Mr. Potter."

Harry looked in the mirror again, thinking about what she'd said about charms receptacles on one's body. "Could I get my ears pierced?"

#

#

Harry's clothing was old, torn, stained, and much too big. He was aware of that and did not care. So it'd taken a while before it'd occurred to him that transfiguring his clothing to fit might be fun.

He'd also changed the color. Harry liked color. Bright neon blue! Bright neon green! Bright neon yellow! Went with the earrings.

Not bright neon red. He didn't like many reds besides blood red and maroon. Purple was polarized-some was great, some was bad. Almost all hues were good, but only in darker shades. A lot of purple that was brighter and slightly pink, wasn't horrible, though the texture mattered. Powdery was bad, but-

"Harry, stop. You've covered your hands in ink and now you're casting color charms on the ink? No. That's not what you're doing. You're transfiguring it, aren't you? That's dangerous, Harry, it's right on your skin, you could transfigure yourself by accident."

Harry shrugged at Hermione. He wouldn't mind being purple. So long as it was a darker shade.

"Potter!" said Professor McGonagall, and Harry stopped. He curled his hands into fists so she couldn't see his palms.

"Let me see your hands, Potter."

He showed her the backs of them.

McGonagall sighed. "Your palms, Potter."

"Why do you want to see my palms? This isn't divination. We don't start that until third-year, and you said-"

"Potter!"

Harry showed her his palms.

She glared at them, whisked her wand through the air, and the purple ink vanished.

"You're trying to transfigure the coloring agents into something that produces the desired wavelengths of light by working backward from the desired wavelength?"

"Exactly. It's hard because I don't have enough reference materials."

"Detention," said McGonagall.

"You'll have to schedule it with Professors Snape and Flitwick."

"Not Professor Sprout?"

"We finished."

McGonagall nodded gravely and looked at his work. Most of the students were still trying to turn a soup spoon into a stirring stick — Potter had done that rather casually within seconds of the activity being explained, then he'd played around for a few minutes with different types of soup spoons and stirring sticks, and had little more to learn from the exercise.

Really, she should make him do some math, but she'd been teaching long enough to know that what Potter needed was to get to the point where the necessity of the math would become apparent to him.

She summoned a color chart from her desk. Dye, not paint. "Rather than ink on your hands, you might experiment with clothing."

Harry nodded and took off his robe to experiment on, revealing the painfully bright muggle clothing he had on beneath.

A Hufflepuff made a joke about never having seen a rainbow sun before.

Professor McGonagall looked at the clothing as Harry altered his robes into something Albus Dumbledore might call garish.

She held him behind after class (which was routine, really) and once all the other students had left, said, "Mr. Potter, you're wearing transfigured clothing?"

He nodded.

"What is it transfigured from?"

"Clothing," said Harry.

"I imagine you outgrew your old clothing, so you made it larger. That's dangerous."

Harry explained that the clothing was actually much too big for him, hand-me-downs from his cousin, and McGonagall asked to see one.

For whatever reason, she didn't seem pleased when Harry took off his shirt and gave it to her.

"Put your robe back on," said Professor McGonagall, returning it to its original color.

McGonagall laid out his shirt and muttered over it. In short order she'd discovered what she wanted, and the original shirt, in its stained and tattered glory, lay before them.

"I see why you wanted to transfigure it. But wearing objects in danger of reverting is dangerous. In order to transfigure them properly..."

#

#

It was concerning, the way Harry Potter cackled.

He'd laid out beat up old clothes on the Quidditch pitch, covered them with grass from the Quidditch pitch, and other plant materials from other places, and was transfiguring them. And cackling.

It was the second time he'd done so, and the Hufflepuff Quidditch team was slightly unnerved. There was also the fact that Professor McGonagall was in the stands, possibly spying for Gryffindor.

Harry flounced around beneath them, casting spells on the clothing. After nearly an hour of that, he grabbed a pair of underwear, and put them on beneath his robe. Then a pair of pants. Then he took off his robe and put on a shirt.

Cedric Diggory, third-year reserve, shook his head at the barmy Boy-Who-Lived.

#

#

The staff meeting revolved around a discussion of the first-years, and they'd finally reached P. The letter they'd all been waiting for.

Dumbledore said, "And how is Mr. Potter?"

Sinistar, the Astronomy Professor, said. "He's given to spurts of overly rambunctious behavior but is overall a quiet boy; he seems largely unaware of the attention paid him. He did poorly on the assessment test and has been inconsistent with his homework, but he has paid moderate attention and his quiz marks are acceptable. Always hanging around with Ronald Weasley."

Professor Sprout's report was nearly identical. Professors Flitwick and Quirrell said much the same, adding only that he displayed a flair for spellcasting, though not a truly remarkable one.

They all mentioned detentions. Nothing malicious. He just didn't seem to understand the concept of rules.

Professor Dumbledore said, "Mr. Potter is the youngest of the first-years. Handicap your evaluations of him accordingly."

Professor Snape snorted. "Reasonably talented with a wand Potter may or may not be, but he lacks both the intelligence and the will to live up to his fame. His potions work is abysmal. I've yet to see him pay complete attention for a single instant. His homework makes clear that he only skims the assigned text, rather than reading it, and he'd best gain some idea of what a comma is if he ever wants to get better than a Poor on a composition."

Professor McGonagall said, "That may be, but in my class he's a bloody little genius."

The room was silent. Snape gaped. McGonagall describing a student as a genius was even more startling than her describing said genius as 'bloody.'

Professor McGonagall said, "And an absolute terror of course. He completes the exercise in an instant, then spends the rest of the class asking himself, 'What happens if I do this?' Which wouldn't be so bad except he immediately goes and does it. He has an advanced if unsophisticated understanding of theory, and a legitimate feel for it what's more, but getting him to think about a planned course of action for more than five seconds is a problem. So far he's avoided any lengthy stays in the hospital wing, but it's been a near thing. Miss Granger seems put out at not being the best, but all the points she earns keeping him alive make up for it."

The silence was even more profound, broken at last by Dumbledore's cough. "Genius, you say?"

"He transfigured his whole muggle wardrobe, and he even did it properly the third time around. Elegant, carefully controlled permanent transfiguration. From a first-year. After a month and a half of schooling. Overlarge cotton rags into perfectly fit silk. He used cut grass for the refreshing, and pebbles for the buttons. Beautiful buttons. And a muggle contraption called a zipper, which I profess to have been impressed by. And the clothing has even accepted anti-tearing and anti-ripping charms."

The silence had grown even deeper. Her colleagues' expressions were nearly skeptical. That would be an Outstanding class project from a third-year. Impressive from a fourth-year, even.

"Yes," said Professor McGonagall, answering their unspoken questions. "I watched him cast the spells. It wasn't someone else. Professor Flitwick, I believe he came to you about the charms?"

The little man nodded. "He said it was for his muggle-clothing. If I'd known he wanted to cast charms on transfigured clothing, I would've given him another detention, not a demonstration."

Professor McGonagall said, "The transfiguration was more than good enough. Filius, has he asked you about animation yet? He's promised to hold off on conjuration and unliving to living transfiguration transformation until I say he's ready, and I'm using animation to keep him occupied in the interim."

Professor Flitwick said, "Not as yet."

"I'm not surprised. Charms frustrates him. He doesn't like how you have to use a different incantation to cast different spells, and he can't guess it. But eventually..."

Professor Flitwick nodded. Animation was the broadest bridge linking transfiguration and charms. You couldn't properly master it without looking at it from both ends.

Then something odd about what she'd said struck Flitwick. "It's not as if there aren't specific incantations in transfiguration."

Professor McGonagall's answering smile was dry. "His greatest flaw, other than a death wish, a distaste for math, and the poor spelling and grammar Severus noted, is his unwillingness to attempt to remember specific incantations. He uses it once at most, to get a feel for the spell, then never uses it again. After that, general incantations with whatever systematic mods he thinks ought to work."

The other Professors were processing that, but Professor Dumbledore wore a broad grin, looking twenty years younger. "Excellent. Any other unexpected talents?"

"Well," said Madam Hooch, who was normally more of a resource than a participant during staff meetings, "He's damn good on a broom."

Dumbledore absent nod communicated that while this was indeed nice, and even worth mentioning, it wasn't exactly critical. He was more concerned with the reported initial state of Harry's muggle clothes, particularly combined with Pomfrey's report of mild poor nutrition — he'd talk to Minerva about that later — and with the reports from other Professors indicating Potter was only really friendly with one other student, Ronald Weasley.

"Minerva, didn't you say that he was Miss Granger's only friend?"

"I said that he's the closest she has to one, not that they're close.

"Nurture the seed then."

The staff nodded, except Snape, who sneered. At Hogwarts, as at many schools, socially isolated students had a mysterious tendency to wind up paired with those the teachers thought they might make friends with.

Dumbledore moved on to the next student. "Pram, Mary."

:::  
This has been pretty popular on the other site. Thought I'd put it here too.

Skeleton of a Dead God is an original story by yours truly, freely available on Wattpad. If you like this, please check that out. By Jonathan Lake. "A courtyard, a fountain, green grass, the brick of the seven story university library. A woman falling from the sky.

Eyes wide, Alex stood, arms extended to catch her, but she was thirty yards too far away for that. ..."

Monstrosity, by Jonathan Lake, is on Amazon for just $2.99. There's a story I wrote that's actually complete.


	2. New Friends

Harry had already learned the Levitation spell for the sake of his Potions experiment with the nettles, but the learning hadn't stuck. They'd gotten to it in Charms class, and when he cast the spell, his feather twitched.

Harry glared at Hermione's feather. She had it floating just fine, and he didn't, because apparently pronunciation really did matter, which was weird and stupid but apparently true despite that, and was one of the things that made Charms a bum class, not that pronunciation didn't matter in Transfiguration, but there at least he could use the same three or four general incantations for everything and largely ignore the issue of all those finicky incantations.

"Win-gar-dium Levi-o-sa. Make the gar nice and long and put the accent on the o," Hermione said. Ron, who she was talking to, rolled his eyes.

Harry took pains to pronounce the darn thing properly, and his feather rose.

He kept it up and made it bob, tried to move it left, but it just jiggled, kept at it, recast the spell when the feather fell, and after a few minutes, was moving it around with a modicum of control.

He didn't get the same clicky feeling he got when a transformation completed, but it did feel nice, sort of.

He floated the feather over Ron's head, and Harry brushed Hermione's cheek with it.

Hermione glared at him, and Harry said, "Wahahahaha," and tickled her ear with it.

"How are you doing that?"

"You just make it do, and it does," said Harry.

Hermione cast the spell again, but couldn't get her feather to do more than float in place. She called over Professor Flitwick, who gave her a few instructions Harry didn't catch, and before long Hermione was attacking Harry with her own feather.

Ron sat between them, stewing.

When class let out, Harry headed for the door with Ron, and Ron said, "I don't know how you can stand her."

"Who?"

"Hermione. She's a nightmare, honestly. No wonder she doesn't have any friends."

"I'm her friend," said Harry.

"She's a bossy know-it-all," said Ron.

Harry said, "Yes, and sometimes it's annoying. Especially the way she goes on about rules. But better a bossy know-it-all than a proud know-nothing. Plus, you're being mean on purpose right now, and Hermione's only ever mean on accident."

"I'm not being mean," said Ron.

Harry said, "Don't tell me you don't know she's right behind us, Bilius. I'm Harry, and even I know that."

Ron turned slowly, and froze when he saw Hermione, standing right behind them.

Ron went red in the face, but said, "Well, good. She should know."

Harry said, "Come on Hermione. Let's go to our next class, and you can tell me what it is." He grabbed her arm and led her away.

"Harry!" called Ron.

"We're not friends anymore, Bilius." He turned to Neville. "Neville. I've got an open spot, and you seem like the guy to fill it. Well?"

"I..."

"Well?"

Neville hurried after them, leaving Ron behind.

#

#

Hermione sat with Lavender and Parvati at dinner. She'd been hoping to sit with Harry, now that that horrible Ronald had been ditched, but she hadn't seen Harry in a nearly two hours.

She supposed he didn't want to be at the Halloween feast, what, with it being the anniversary of when his parents were killed, and all.

Ronald leaned across the table and said, "Hermione, where's Harry?"

She ignored him.

"Hermione. Hermione. Hermione. Where's Harry?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? Where is he?"

"I haven't seen him since Herbology."

Ron said, "Then he's lost. There's no telling where he might be by now."

Hermione said, "But we've been here for two months now." She'd stopped getting lost after the first two weeks."

"Doesn't matter for Harry."

"You're right," said Hermione. "It doesn't matter. He'll talk to the portraits and get back to the dorm eventually. He's not a little toddler you have to take care of."

Just then, Professor Quirrell ran into the Great Hall. "Troll! In the Dungeons!" he shouted. "Thought you ought to know." He fainted dead away.

Ron said, "We have to-"

Hermione didn't hear the conclusion of his sentence. She was already bolting toward the staff table.

#

#

The troll was large and smelly and had Harry backed into a corner.

"Hello," said Harry, and dug a honey-soaked square of cornbread wrapped in wax paper out of his pocket. He held it out, and the troll sniffed.

He tossed it up near the trolls head, and its mouth snapped forward, downing the morsel.

"Are we friends now?" said Harry.

The troll raised its club.

"I suppose to you that was just an appetizers before the main meal." The troll wouldn't let him go, he wasn't fast enough to escape it, and he didn't know any spells that would let him fight it. Which meant there was only thing to do.

Though he wasn't much interested in music, Harry had a surprisingly nice singing voice.

#

#

Professor McGonagall followed the young voice echoing down the corridors.

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. When you're not happy, my skies are grey."

It wouldn't have riveted her attention so if not for deep rumble accompanying it.

"You'll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away."

Professor McGonagall rounded the corner and found Harry Potter sitting on the troll's lap, singing to it. The troll had its eyes closed, chin jutting out, and was rumbling the tune along with him.

Harry waved to McGonagall and sang, "But if you leave me, and love another, you'll regret it all some day."

#

#

Harry sat in the Gryffindor dorms, explaining what had happened to a skeptical audience.

"You sang to it?"

"I started out with What's Love Got to Do With It, because I like that song, but it seemed like it wanted something slower and more melodic, so I repeated You Are My Sunshine until help came.

Katie Bell said, "Why, why would you, what?"

"It's in our Defence book. Trolls like music. Like cows, but more."

"Cows?" said Hermione.

"Cows like music too," said Harry. "But that's not in our Defence book."

Angelina Johnson sympathetically said, "I suppose you weren't at the feast because it's the anniversary."

"Anniversary of what?"

"Your parents' deaths."

"Oh. That was today, was it?" He shrugged. "It's sad, but I didn't actually know them, you know? Though I'm sure they were nice people. No, I wasn't at the feast because Bilius and I had stopped being friends, so I was lost."

Fred or George said, "How'd you find out Ron's name is Bilius? He never tells anyone that."

Harry said, "His name is really Bilius?"

"His middle name," said Fred or George.

"That's amazing," said Harry. "I just called him that because it fit."

As Harry sang the first few bars of What's Love Got to Do With It in order to demonstrate what had happened, Ron pulled Hermione and Neville aside and instructed them on the rigors of being Harry Potter's friend.

Ron said, "The first thing you have to remember is he has no common sense. He's brilliant, but he doesn't know anything. He doesn't know his class schedule, so you'll have to see he gets to his classes. And make sure he eats, he forgets. Who wants the first-aid kit? I've got bruise balm, bandages, burn salve, antiseptic, you can get refills from Madam Pomfrey." He set the first-aid kit on the table in front of them. "There's not much you can do about his eyebrows, but that's alright, he doesn't need them. You can't stop him from experimenting, but try to make him wear the safety goggles when he does."

Ron looked from one worried face to the other.

Ron said, "It's not that hard, really. Just make sure he doesn't walk into walls too often or too hard. And hold on to him when he's taking the stairs. And keep his detention planner updated."

Hermione and Neville exchanged glances.

Hermione said, "Ron, are you sorry for what you said?"

"Yeah."

"Do you promise to never say mean things like that to me again?"

"I promise," said Ron.

Hermione pressed the first-aid kit into Ron's hands. "You're friends with Harry again. Don't worry, I'll tell him for you."

Neville said, "Then I-"

Hermione said, "Don't worry Neville, you're still in the group. It's four people now."

#

#

Hermione said, "You're friends with Ron again."

Harry said, "Okay. But am I still friends with Neville? Three friends is too many. It's time consuming."

"It'll be fine. Ronald and Neville will occupy each other most of the time."

"I guess... They are pretty similar. Interchangeable, really."

"They're not the same person."

"That's okay. They're close enough I can treat them like one person. Nevald maybe."

"Don't ever tell them that."

 

:::

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whether cows actually like music is unclear to me. They'll gather around a musician, but they'll gather around any odd thing that enters their environment. But it's commonly believed, and I thought it made a good line.
> 
> Please check out Skeleton of a Dead God on Wattpad. By Jonathan Lake. (Me.) It's free. Or Monstrosity, on Amazon, for $2.99.


	3. A Day in the Life

Harry sat at breakfast, dissatisfied with the seating arrangement. Ron was on his left, and he would've liked Hermione on his right, but then Neville either would've been alone on the other side of the table, or, if he was on the same side, made it a lineup of four, meaning those at opposite ends would hardly be able to talk to each other.

Exactly why Harry thought three friends was one too many, but Hermione had told him to deal with it, and so it was that Hermione and Neville sat opposite Harry and Ron, and strangers sat around them. Harry thought Nevald should sit together, but Hermione said she "didn't want to be bothered with playing mum," whatever that meant, so it was as it was, and Harry had mostly made his peace with it

Only now, as he tried to eat his cereal, there was another problem.

"A wizard's duel, Potter. At midnight in the trophy room."

Harry looked to Ron and jerked his thumb at the disruption. "Who is that?"

"Draco Malfoy," said Ron.

"Do I know him?"

"A little," said Ron. "He-"

The blond one said, "Don't pretend you don't recognize me, Potter."

Harry said, "What's he like?"

"Blood-purist ponce. Very annoying. Remember, he got in trouble over Neville's remembrall?"

"Oh yeah! That." He turned to That. "Sorry. I didn't recognize you without your student helpers."

"Don't pretend... my students helpers?"

Harry said, "It was a thing at my muggle school. There were a couple students who had problems, sort of, up here," he pointed to his head. "Very sad. So the teachers asked a couple of nicer students to look after them. I've noticed you have two. The big one and the other big one. But now you don't have them."

"They're not. Where are they?" He looked around the hall, spotted them, opened his mouth to call for them, then stopped. "They're not my helpers."

"They're your friends, then?"

"No, they're..." What were they? "Look, the duel. Accept, or you're a coward."

Ron said, "We accept. I'm his second."

Harry said, "Don't speak for me. I don't accept. What's a duel? Does anyone die?"

Ron said, "Not usually. For first-years, you'd just be shooting sparks at each other, probably."

"That doesn't sound bad," said Harry. "But I'm asleep at midnight, so no."

Draco said, "Then you're a coward."

Harry looked him straight in his eyes, face impassive. "You're an idiot," he proclaimed with an air of finality, less insult than diagnosis and returned to his breakfast.

Malfoy gawked at the back of his head and shouted a few imprecations, but Harry cheerily added walnuts to his cereal and didn't notice him.

Malfoy stormed off in a huff, and Hermione said, "How much of that was on purpose?"

"What?" said Harry.

His friends gave him looks, and Harry eventually processed that he'd dealt with whats-his-name handily and he might as well claim credit for it.

"It was all on purpose," said Harry, and he tried to wink.

Hermione rolled her eyes and said, "We have Defense in 15 minutes."

Defense was as typical. Smelly and wonderful. Professor Quirrell droned on about hinkypuffs, and capped it off by saying, "A-any further q-questions on H-hinkypuffs?"

The class stared back, eyes glazed. Ron was staying awake by having his hands fight each other (the left hand was the evil twin), Neville was simultaneously nervous and sleepy, and Harry was staring at Quirrell with the look of wonder he always wore in Quirrell's class, though he did not actually pay attention to the content.

Only Hermione did that.

Harry raised his hand.

Quirrell ignored it, but the other students didn't. They looked at Harry with his hand raised, and perked up, waiting to see how this would go, because Harry Potter and Hermione Granger were the only ones who ever asked questions in Defense, and Harry's questions were a lot more intresting.

Hermione poked Harry, but he kept his hand up.

Finally, after giving the class a long look, as if asking someone else to raise a hand, Quirrell nodded in Harry's direction.

"It's not about hinkypuffs sir. It's the smell. It's giving me a headache. Could we open a window?"

Quirrell said, "Th-that incense is f-for d-driving off v-vampires."

Harry said, "It works on me too. Besides, isn't incense the stuff you burn? You don't burn this. What is it, pompadour? Your pompadour gives me a headache." He turned to Hermione. "Is pompadour the right word?"

"A Pompadour is a hair style," said Hermione. "I think you mean potpourri."

"Right," said Harry. "I h-hate the smell of your garlic p-p-potpourri."

Hermione smacked his chest.

Quirrell said, "P-p-potter. Are you m-mocking me?"

"Of course not Professor, you're so impressive I don't even know how I would mock you if I wanted to."

Quirrell's eye twitched. Harry's head hurt more than before, but it was the weird tickly headache which Harry supposed was a stress headache, so, to de-stress, he went through his version of deep breathing.

Harry imagined that he looked in his belly button and saw a miniature version of himself, and looked in its belly button and saw a miniature version of himself, and looked in its belly button and saw a miniature version of himself. And so forth. Quite calming.

Professor Quirrell blinked, opened a window, then cast a warming charm around as it was quite nippy outside. Then he returned to his droning.

When the clock had ticked enough times, Quirrell let them out and Hermione rounded on Harry the moment they'd stepped outside the door.

Hermione said, "Harry, how could you do that? Professor Quirrell's confidence problems won't get any better from you making fun of him. Would you make fun of Neville for stuttering?"

Neville said, "I-I won't still be st-stuttering when I'm that old."

"Of course not," said Harry. "Not to his face. Maybe a little in private." He clapped Neville on the shoulder. "But Neville actually stutters. Quirrell is just faking."

Hermione gave him a doubtful expression, so Harry said, "Don't tell me you haven't noticed. It's like he forgets for a moment, then stutters extra to make up for it. And it doesn't seem spontaneous like with Neville. Not convincing at all."

"Maybe he's bad at stuttering," said Hermione.

"Bad at stuttering?" said Ron.

Hermione said, "Think Harry. What's more likely? He's just pretending to have a stutter, embarrassing himself in front of all his students, or he's bad a stuttering? Imagine it, Harry. Not only does he stutter, which is horrible enough already, he can't even stutter right. He must be so embarrassed, and you made fun of him for it, to his face, in front of the whole class."

Neville said, "St-stuttering isn't that bad."

Hermione said, "Imagine if that were Neville, grown up."

Harry looked contrite. He bit his lip, glanced at his feet, and squeezed Neville's shoulder. "Sorry, mate."

"You didn't make fun of m-me. You need to apologize to Professor Q-Quirrell."  
Harry said, "Do I have to?"

"You have to," Hermione confirmed.

So Harry sighed, squared his shoulders, and marched back into the emptied classroom.

Professor Quirrel was at his desk, making notes in his lesson book, and Harry pulled up a seat before the desk, sat in it, and said, "Sir, I'm here to apologize. I was mocking you, a little. But I want you to understand that I wasn't making fun of you for stuttering. I was making fun of how you stutter. I'm sure you'll get better at it if you try."

Professor Quirrell set down his quill. "N-n-no worries, Potter. So long as you're s-sorry."

Harry nodded and patted Quirrell's hand.

Quirrell hissed and said, "Potter, I'll thank you kindly not to touch me."

"Sorry."

Quirrell pulled that hand into his lap, beneath the desk. It had a large, raised red welt where Harry had touched it, as if he'd played with fire and done it wrong.

Harry said, "I'm sure once you've improved your stuttering, you'll be a better teacher, and maybe you'll even be able to get a better job if you want."

Quirrell said, "Being a Hogwarts Professor is a prestigious position."

"Really? My Uncle said that school teachers don't-"

Quirrell said, "Voldemort himself applied for this position."

"Really? That's weird. He didn't get it, so what, he became a Dark Lord instead? Was that his fallback plan? Like, 'Oh, I'll try to make it as a teacher, but if that doesn't work, I'll conquer Britain?' Probably would've been a horrible teacher, too. Worse than Snape."

Quirrell said, "He was extremely qualified. One of the greatest wizard ever, even his enemies don't contest that."

"Was he really?" said Harry. "I know he did a lot of scary stuff, but he literally lost a fight to a baby. Can you imagine? Ask historians fifty years from now about Voldemort, and they'll say, 'Yes, British chap, very mean, lost to a baby.' Or future Dark Lords, they're studying the history of Dark Lords, looking for examples of what not to do. 'Hagis the Horrible, don't use fiendfyre in an enclosed space, well obviously. Gellert Grindlewald, don't fight Albus Dumbledore one on one, sound advice. Lord Voldemort, don't lose a fight to a baby, wait, what?' I mean seriously. I wouldn't lose to a baby. One kick and it's over."

Quirrell's free hand clenched around his wand. An expression of utter rage crossed his face, and Harry didn't notice.

Quirrell glanced at the door. Potter's friends were waiting at it, looking in, observing the 'apology,' and other students were passing by in the hall.

Quirrell said, "Apology a-accepted, P-potter. You can l-leave now. R-run along.

Harry stood, and when he'd left, Quirrell waved his wand. The door and window shut, privacy spells came down like a curtain, and his whole manner changed.

He said, "His touch burned me."

From beneath his turban, a sibilant voice spoke."The protection of his mother," Voldemort answered. "It's been maintained."

"We should kill him."

"If the opportunity presents itself. But Dumbledore is watching. We must be careful. There'll be time enough for him later, once we succeed."

"But I hate him so much," said Quirrell.

"I know," said Voldemort. "I hate him too."

#

#

After classes were over for the day, Harry sat in detention in McGonagall's classroom. Hermione was there too, doing homework, and Harry didn't know why she wasn't doing her homework in the Common Room or the library, but there were lots of things he didn't know and most of them he didn't spend any time thinking about, and why Hermione followed him to some of his detentions was no exception.

Anyway, he had maths to worry about, evil, hard, pointless maths that McGonagall made him do during detention, and Harry missed the spell demonstrations from his early detentions. McGonagall claimed math was important, and maybe she was right, but it shouldn't be, and that was what mattered.

"Can't I just do it on feel?" Harry complained.

Hermione said, "You need maths. Intuition only goes so far. You can't just pick and choose what parts of the subject to learn. You have to-"

McGonagall voice was quiet, but Hermione stopped the moment the Professor spoke. "If you truly master the maths, Mr. Potter, your ability to do it by feel will expand dramatically. Intuition is calculation settled into the bones."

Harry looked at her suspiciously. "You're just trying to make it sound all cool because you think I'll learn it better that way."

Professor McGonagall said, "Why don't you want to learn it?"

"It's not that I don't want to learn it. It just too much of a bother."

Professor McGonagall peered over her glasses at him and said, "Why does it frighten you?"

"Frighten me? It doesn't fri-"

"Harry."

Harry stopped. When he spoke again, he spoke even more quickly than normal, but his words were harsh and clipped. "The Greek symbols. I don't know what they mean. I'm pretty smart. People say I am. That's my only thing. What if I try to understand maths, and I still can't?"

"Then you will keep trying. Some have to try harder than others, but trust me when I say that nothing that is taught at this school is fundamentally beyond any of its students. Miss Granger is trying. Do you think she isn't frightened by the idea of discovering she isn't as smart as people say? Is she that much braver than you? Aren't you a Gryffindor? Besides, I think if you get to know the symbols, you'll find they're not so daunting as they look at first."

Harry glanced at Hermione, who was doing a strong imitation of a statue, and had a strange look in her eyes. He pointed to his exercise book. "What does this squiggly one mean again?"

"That's lambda, and it represent the propogation speed constant. Can you tell me what a constant is?"

It wasn't so bad.

#

#

That night, Harry sat in the common room, doing the additional maths exercises Professor McGonagall had recommended. It was a little interesting, so long as he made himself forget about all the other things that were much more interesting.

Ron said, "Wanna play chess?"

"I'm busy mathing. Play with Neville."

"Neville sucks at chess."

"Sounds like a personal problem," said Harry, moving numbers around. Once he tried, he could see how transforming the numbers was the same as transforming an object, only there wasn't any object, which was lame, but still.

Ron said, "Sometimes I wonder why you're not in Ravenclaw."

Harry said, "The hat almost put me in Ravenclaw."

Ron looked betrayed.

Harry said, "What's this whole thing about houses anyway? Where are they? Why haven't I seen one?  
"We're Gryffindors!" said Ron.

"So, Gryffindor's a house? I thought so. But where is it? I've only seen a castle." He paused, a lightbulb going off in his head. "Is Hagrid's cottage a house?"

Ron slapped his own forehead. "There's four Houses, Harry. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and..."

Harry stopped listening.

It was hard to transfigure a solid into a liquid. But, for example, what if he transfigured a block of wood into a block of ice that was just barely cold enough to be ice? In a few moments, he'd have liquid water. If he attached a warming charm, he'd have it instantly.

For that matter, what if he turned rock into liquid rock, but without heating it? Could he even do that? Wouldn't it break the maths? Probably he could do it, but a moment later, the rock would solidify. Unless he made it a permanent transfiguration. It might not still be rock though. It might be more direct to use a charm to lower rock's melting point.

Charms though... messy subject.

Ron said, "...and that's why it's important we don't fraternize with the Slytherins."

Harry said, "Is that what the thing with the talking Hat was about?"

Harry remembered his own sorting. The Hat had said, "Now what in Merlin's name is this? Not a bad mind, and talent, oh yes, but gosh you are an eccentric little thing. I've never been set on a less Slytherin head, and I just sorted Neville Longbottom. Hufflepuff fits in some ways, but tell me, what do you think of hard work?"

Harry had said, "Seems daft, really, but live and let live, I always say."

"Yes, setting a goal and working for it is a concept you're unfamiliar with. And I'm not sure you've ever properly noticed another human being, so that puts loyalty into question. Certainly no Hufflepuff here. You're worryingly fearless, but you're also bursting with curiosity. Perhaps Ravenclaw is the way to go?"

Harry had said, "Mr. Hat sir, I've been wondering, wizards have wands, but are there any magic swords? Glowy ones maybe?"

"GRYFFINDOR!" the Hat had shouted.

Ron concluded, "...and if we do good stuff, we get points for Gryffindor. Understand?"

"Sure," said Harry.

:::  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Malfoy's duel request is out of order, but of course it is. Everyone but Harry should be as in canon, but Harry being different changes a lot.
> 
> Major tonal whiplash moving from the light comedy of unwittingly tormenting a Dark Lord to the serious business of a conversation about math.
> 
> To be clear, lambda only represents the propagation speed constant (whatever the hell that is) for wizards.
> 
> Norbert is coming.
> 
> Please check out Skeleton of a Dead God by Jonathan Lake on Wattpad.
> 
> I love reviews.


	4. Norbert

Norbert

Harry liked the Easter holiday better than Christmas. There was more homework, sure, but transfiguring stuff he wasn't supposed to transfigure wasn't as much fun without Hermione there to look horrified and bounce ideas off of.

Even after a lot of trying, he hadn't been able to transfigure his invisibility cloak at all, which was frustrating, but he hoped that once he learned size modification charms he'd be able to do interesting things with the cloak, like making the Herbology green houses disappear. A goal for next year.

But now the Easter Holiday was over as well, and the end of the year was in sight, and Hermione was getting really weird about studying. She kept insisting that he do it, when really all Harry wanted to do was transfigure stuff, explore the castle, and fly around on one of the school brooms.

They were in the library, having just finished their homework, which was okay, Harry could understand doing homework, but now that they'd finished it, she was holding a stack of small squares of paper and asking him to name the ingredients to the Draught of Living Death.

"Are those flashcards?" Harry said.

"Yes. Harry, name the ingredients to the Draught of Living Death."

"Oh hell no," said Harry. "Come on, let's visit Hagrid."

Ron nodded, and Hermione said, "Neville, name the ingredients to the Draught of Living Death."

Neville said, "Powdered root of asphodel and..."

Harry said, "Neville, stop. Don't indulge her. If you ever make the Draught of Living Death, you'll use a recipe. Knowing it by heart is trivia. If we're going to fill our minds with trivia, it'll at least be trivia we choose. Come on. Hermione, you love visiting Hagrid, you always get all thoughtful."

Apparently, she found out about mysteries there. Like Gringotts being robbed. Learning Gringotts had been robbed on his birthday, the day he'd been there, was pretty cool. Gringotts had been cool in general. First there'd been goblins, then the roller coaster to his vault, then his vault. He vaguely recalled that Hagrid had picked up something there too, but he'd been too busy asking the goblin questions to pay any attention.

The goblin had been annoyingly close-lipped about Gringotts' security measures.

"...and an infusion of wormwood," said Neville.

Hermione said, "Now define the difference between an infusion and an extract."

"Um," said Neville.

"Is anyone listening to me?" said Harry. "Hermione. Hermione. Hermione."

Hermione said, "We'll study for an hour, you'll learn some of this trivia, as you call it, because it actually is important to know by heart, since you can't think about what you don't know, and then we'll go to Hagrid's. Okay?" She jabbed her index finger into Harry's nose.

"Okay," said Harry, looking cross-eyed at the tip of her finger.

"And don't look at me like that, Ronald, you're studying too. No grumbling."

Ron said, "The twins say our grades don't even matter until fifth-year."

Harry said, "Ron, no grumbling, we have to study."

Ron said, "Why do you always take Hermione's side?"

"What? No I don't. Now open your book."

Ron sighed and opened his book. He should know better than to disagree with Hermione, because the moment he did that, Harry would start agreeing with Hermione, and then there was no telling how long they'd be studying.

A little over an hour later, Harry knocked on Hagrid's door.

Fang barked, and Hagrid opened the door just enough to stick his head out. he looked tense, relaxed when he saw the four of them, and said, "Sorry you lot, I'm a bit busy."

"With what?" said Harry, squeezing through the crack and past Hagrid, into the hut. "Oh, look, dragon!"

Hagrid turned away from the door to grab Harry, and the other three followed them into the hut.

A black dragon the size of a kestrel lay in a wire cage on the hearth.

Hagrid said, "This ain't what it looks like."

Hermione said, "Hagrid, is having a dragon legal?"

Hagrid said, "Er, well, Harry, get away from 'im. He'll breathe fire on you if you let 'im."

Harry stared at the baby dragon. The baby dragon stared at Harry. Harry stared at the baby dragon staring at him.

Harry said, "What's its name."

"E's Norbert. E's a Norwegian Ridgeback."

"He's adorable. Even better than the dog."

"The dog?" said Hermione.

"In one of the rooms. I forget which. He likes when I scratch under his chins, but the other head gets jealous and I don't have enough hands."

Hermione would've asked about that, but thoughts of 'the dog' were driven out of her head when Harry said, "Can I have Norbert?"

Hagrid, "E's mine."

"My birthday is in just a few short months."

Hermione said, "Harry, no!"

"Definitely not," agreed Ron. "They get big. He'll eat you."

Harry said, "I'll ask Professor Flitwick about permanent shrinking charms."

Ron said, "He'd make a bloody mess of the dorms."

"Really?"

"They're untidy, dragons," confirmed Hagrid.

"Never mind then. So long as I can visit him here."

"About that," said Hagrid, twisting his leather apron. "It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I'm afraid he's gonna get a mite big. I can't keep him, but I can't jus' dump him. I can't."

Harry said, "Couldn't you call dragon control, or whatever?"

"Properly speaking, I'm not supposed ter 'ave 'im."

"You could say you found him in the forest," said Harry.

"There aren't any dragons near the school, and asides, e's a Norwegian Ridgeback. E's not native. They'd want ter know where he came from."

Harry frowned, feeling he was missing something, and while they discussed it, Hagrid brought out tea and rock cakes.

Hermione, Ron and Neville, with the air of practice, each took a rock cake, then hid them in their pockets when Hagrid wasn't looking.

Harry cast a Softening Charm on one of Hagrid's rock cakes, crammed it in his mouth, and chewed. "Pretty good," he said upon swallowing, and he took another.

Hermione said, "Is that safe? What about when the charm wears off?"

"By then, the rock cake should be in tiny little re-hydrated pieces dissolving in acid."

Hermione said, "You're basically eating a spell."

"It's probably fine," said Harry, and he ate the other rock cake.

Neville said, "R-Ron, didn't you say your brother, he works at a dragon sanctuary in Romania?"

"Brilliant," said Ron. "Hagrid, how about it? We could owl Charlie, and Charlie could take Norbert."

"Always liked Charlie," said Hagrid. "Used to come around to see me when he was a student."

That plan was roundly agreed to, but Hermione said, "It could take weeks for Charlie to come. In the meantime, Norbert will get bigger. Dragons grow fast, I read, and Hagrid could be fired."

Harry pointed his wand at Norbert. "I have a solution. But it would be easier if it were unconscious. Does anyone know any spells to make a dragon unconscious?"

"There's S-Stupefy," said Neville.

Harry said, "Does anyone know that?"

They shook their heads. Hermione said, "Ronald could tell Madam Pomfrey he's having trouble sleeping and ask for a potion."

"Why me?" said Ron.

"Neville can't lie, if it's Harry, they'll suspect something, and I'm certainly not lying to a staff member. That leaves you."

"And it's alright for me to lie to Madam Pomfrey?" Ron said.

"No need for that," said Hagrid. "I got somethin." Hagrid went to his cabinet and came back with a small bottle of red-tinted glass, filled with green fluid, stoppered with wax. He poured a six drops on a haunch of raw rabbit, and gave it to Norbert, who devoured it in a few crushing bites, small jaws grinding bone as if bone were crumbly cake.

The little dragon burped up a puff of black smoke that smelled like burned meat, shut its eyes, and fell to sleep.

Harry squared his shoulders, faced the dragon, and rather than muttering the incantation as he usually did, nearly shouted, "Animata Reformandam!"

The little black dragon turned into a cherry red brick, and Harry turned very pale. He sunk to his knees, rolled onto his side, and said, "Damn."

"Language," said Hermione. "Are you alright?"

"Dragons are hard." He pulled himself back to a sitting position and examined the brick, tapping it twice with his wand to get a feel for it. "That should hold for a while, and in the meantime, he won't grow. Bricks don't. Think we could mail it to Charlie?"

Hagrid said, "'Arry, that was very advanced spell work. Your da' was ace at transfiguration, he couldna done that his first year. Not his second neither. Nor his third. No, I take that back. Maybe he coulda done that by the end of his third."

"My dad was good at transfiguration?"

"Best in 'is year, least at the practical side."

From time to time, Harry's parents had been mentioned, and Hermione had never seen Harry show the least bit of interest. They were "people he didn't know." But, exhausted from his spell, he bit his lip, glanced away, and in a scratchy voice, said, "And my mum?"

Hagrid said, "She was a prefect and Head Girl, so you can bet she did everything well, but she was counted best in her year at Charms, and one of the best at potions."

"Rubbish subjects," said Harry, but he looked pleased.

Ron picked up the brick. "Too heavy for an owl. There's the Feather light Charm, though. But I think it's a second year charm."

Harry said, "Hermione could learn it."  
Hermione said, "But could I make it last long enough? Imagine if the brick returned to full weight in the middle of the flight."

"We could attach runes," said Harry.

Hermione said, "We don't know anything about runes."

"It would be a fun project. There's a whole section in the library about it. You-"

Neville said, "It's easy. We owl Ch-Charlie. He comes back from Romania to visit his p-parents. While he's in Britain, he stops at Hogwarts to tell, to tell Hagrid about the d-dragons in Romania. When he leaves, there's a brick, there's a brick in his bag."

"That's boring," said Harry.

"It's perfect," said Hermione. "Harry, you'll have stop by regularly to make sure the brick stays a brick."

"Right job thinking," said Ron, patting Neville on the back. "Harry, let me borrow Hedwig."

Harry took another rock cake.

#

#

A week and a half later, Charlie Weasley visited Hogwarts. He stopped at Professor Kettleburn's office for an hour, then had tea with Hagrid. If his bag was a little heavier on the way out, no one noticed.

 

:::

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hermione is kind of the leader, isn't she? Her and Harry, but Harry defers to her a lot, and I'm even telling the story from her perspective from time to time.
> 
> The next chapter is going to a bit more serious. The end of the first year is near.
> 
> Please check out "Skeleton of a Dead God" on Wattpad. By Jonathan Lake.


	5. End of Year

End of Year

Quirrell stood before the mirror at the end of the forbidden Third-Corridor.

The early obstacles had been insultingly simple, but hidden in those childish obstacles had been subtle and powerful traps for any impatient Dark Lord who tried to brute force his way through them, and it had been quicker, safer, to pass through them as they were designed, even as the indignity had infuriated him.

At some point, he would reach the real trap, the one intended to work after all the others had incited him to anger and lulled him into complacency.

The mirror, perhaps, was the real trap, or just another time consuming obstacle. It had stumped him for some time, but he was starting to understand it. He was nearly sure it contained the stone. And there, just there. All he had to do was...

"Away, away, pull away."

His master's voice was urgent, and Quirrell took a step back.

His master's thoughts pushed into his own, and Quirrell saw the trap. Saw how close they'd come to a complete defeat.

"I can still do it," insisted Quirrell.

"You fool, I'll be bound with you. There are other ways."

Other ways for Voldemort, maybe. Not for Quirrell. Possession was not healthy. If they didn't get the stone, Quirrell would die within the month. He reached toward the mirror. There had to be some way. Some way.

"Stop."

Quirrell stopped, his arm frozen before him despite his demands that it move.

Quirrell heard his master's sneer."Only one who desires to protect the stone but does not desire to have it may gain it. The sort of old magic Dumbledore is so fond of. It's powerful, true, yet all such gimmicks have holes large enough for a clever man to walk through. In this case, a child. An innocent. Modify its memory, and it will take the stone to protect it from us, and so, give it to us."

"The boy."

"Potter is under watch, but almost any first-year Hufflepuff would do. The Bones girl, perhaps."

Quirrell tore his gaze from the mirror. He'd disabled the alarms, and Dumbledore was in London, but still, they'd have to be fast to get it done before Dumbledore returned.

He turned to go, and standing at the exit, before the wall of flame, was Albus Dumbledore, wand in hand. "Fancy meeting you here, Quirinus."

Quirrell recovered quickly."Professor, a cloaked figure was after the stone. I chased it away just before you arrived, but I'm worried it may still be in the castle, a danger to the students."

Dumbledore smiled placidly. "Remarkable that I did not meet it on my way here."

"It may have been some time ago. Forgive me, I was entranced by the mirror." A good gambit, that. The mirror couldn't entrance while it held the stone, so he was as much as saying the stone was gone, and Dumbledore wouldn't be able to resist checking.

As Dumbledore peered over his glasses at the mirror, Quirrell's wand gave the barest quiver.

His silent blasting curse struck an invisible shield before Dumbledore, whose eyes twinkled as he said, "You'll have to do a lot better than that, my dear boy." His face hardened. "How did you come to this, Quirinus? How did Voldemort get to you?"

"I suppose you'll give me a lecture on turning back from evil. Or do you hate me now, Professor?"

"I am disappointed in you. Both of you. You had so much potential, and you've wasted it on what? Yourselves? What has it brought you?"

"Both of us?" said Quirrell.

"What's beneath the turban, Quirinus?"

From beneath Quirrell's turban came a harsh laugh. "Not bad, old man."

Dumbledore said, "You never could resist springing an obvious trap, if the bait was real."

The sibilant voice replied, "And you never could resist offering as bait what you should've kept far beyond my reach."

"Oh?" Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "Have you reached it?"

Quirrell snarled. "Avada Kedevra!"

Sand burst up from small holes at Dumbledore's feet, blocking the spell. Sigils glowed on the walls, the ceiling, the floor, and spread up Quirrell's boots.

Quirrell screamed. A pain in his head, as if his skull were splitting apart. "Master, no, don't leave me. We can do this! We can kill him together!"

But Voldemort paid no mind, and Quirrell collapsed as a grey mist fled his head.

The grey mist shot to the brightly glowing ceiling and was repelled by it.

The mirror disappeared into the floor, and the room began to shrink, glowing brighter and brighter as it did.

Dumbledore stood at the entrance like a statue, his wand still, but it was the stillness not of inactivity, but of bearing a great weight.

This was it. Thrice before, Voldemort had aimed for resurrection, and twice he'd nearly succeeded. If he escaped, he'd try again. But if this worked, it was over. With Voldemort's spirit in captivity, it would be no great strain to discover how he'd anchored himself to life, no great strain to destroy those anchors and send Voldemort into the great beyond to eat his just desserts. No return. No war. No dreadful destiny for a precocious boy.

Quirrell's body exploded in a burst of dark flame that shook the room and cracked the seals, and with a shriek of pain that reverberated through magic itself, Voldemort's spirit escaped.

"Damn it," said Dumbledore.

#

#

Exams had been alright. Harry had always liked tests. Better than homework at least. At the end of the departing week, they'd gotten their scores, and Harry had done quite well. He'd even done alright in potions, which was mostly Ron's fault for disagreeing with Hermione all the time about whether they should study, but Harry had resolved not to hold it against him.

The Great Hall had been decked out very nicely for the closing feast, and Harry was looking forward to the food, but the others at his table were glum.

Harry said, "I wish they'd do the Great Hall in green and silver more often. Green brings out my eyes."

Harry felt several people looking at him. Ron said, "It's green and silver because Slytherin won the House Cup."

"The House Cup? When did that happen? Why didn't we go see it? Or was that the Quidditch?"

Ron said, "Harry, I've explained this to you a hundred times. Whichever House gets the most points wins the House Cup."

Harry said, "That points thing everyone keeps talking about is about what color the hangings will be at the closing feast?"

"It's not just the hangings," said Ron. "There's the Cup. If we win, we get to keep it in our dormitory all next year."

Harry said, "Does it do anything, this cup?"

"It's a Cup," said Ron. "You put it on the mantle above the fireplace"

"And?"

"And it's looks nice. It's gold. It's enchanted so you never have to dust it."

Harry said "Hermione, am I missing something?"

"House Pride," she answered.

"If that's House Pride, I'm proud to say I'm still not sure what a house is. Daft. I know what I'm getting Ron for Christmas next year. A cup."

An older red-headed boy who Harry had never learned the name of said, "You shouldn't make light of it. It's partly your fault we lost, you know. You lost a lot of points."

Harry snorted. All across the table, other Gryffindors glared at him, and he burst out laughing. "This is the surrealist thing I've ever heard."

Everyone was glaring daggers at him, which was also very funny, but Hermione interrupted it by leaning across the table and saying, "Professor Quirrell isn't at the high table."

"The curse strikes again," said one of the two red-heads who looked alike.

The tall red-head said, "He had a family emergency."

"Right," said the other of the two red-heads who looked alike. "Just like when they said Professor Halstead had a family emergency when really..."

The other of the two red-heads who looked alike trailed off when Headmaster Dumbledore's voice filled the hall.

The Headmaster said, "Another year gone, and I must trouble you with an old man's wheezing waffle before we sink our teeth into our delicious feast. What a year it has been! Hopefully your heads are a little fuller than they were... you have the summer ahead to get them nice and empty before next year starts.

"Now, as I understand it, the house cup here needs awarding, and the point stand thus. In fourth place, Hufflepuff, with three hundred and fifty-two. In third, Gryffindor, with three hundred and ninety-nine. Ravenclaw has four hundred and twenty-six, and Slytherin, five hundred and twenty-two.

A storm of cheering and stamping broke out from the Slytherin table. Harry wondered what it was about.

"Yes, well done, Slytherin," said Dumbledore. "However, recent events must be taken into account.

The room went very still. The Slytherins' smiles faded a little.

"15 points to Ravenclaw fifth-year Sally Pomfrey for setting up an inter-house study group to prepare for the OWLs, advancing both test scores and school unity. 10 points to sixth-year Hufflepuff Prefect Brandon Diggs for chasing off Peeves the night before last when he attempted to harass two first-years who were out after curfew. And five points to Harry Potter for setting a new school record for the most non-punitive detentions by a first-year student. Considering the previous record had stood for some four hundred and fifty years, it seems doubtful that Mr. Potter's record will be broken in any of our lifetimes. We are all witnesses to history."

Harry clapped for that one.

"Non-punitive?" said Ron.

Hermione said, "Honestly Ronald, it's in the school rules. You ought to read them. There's punitive detentions, corrective detentions and academic detentions, and they're all marked as such in our records."

Dumbledore concluded, "Seeing as those points do not adjust in what order each house placed, I extend my congratulations to Slytherin on winning the house cup."

Slytherin cheered, and Harry cheered because it seemed the thing to do, but he stopped when Ron caught his hands so he couldn't clap anymore. Headmaster Dumbledore presented the House Cup to Professor Snape, who put it next to his drinking goblet, and Dumbledore said, "Now dig in!"

With a wave of the Headmaster's wand, the food appeared.

#

#

When the cart came into their train car, Harry bought everything. Not one of everything. Just everything. Piles of food. Ron reached for a Chocolate Frog, and Harry pushed his hand away.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Anyone would think you're afraid of starving."

Harry said, "I don't get many sweets at home."

"I should hope not. They'll rot your teeth."

"Pumpkin Pasties aren't that sweet." He'd cast the Feather-Light charm on his trunk, having found it wasn't that hard, and so easily pulled it back down from the rack.

His trunk was full of books. After exams, he'd gone around buying used books off people. He had all the texts the second-years had used, and more importantly, he had novels. Even three comics, and magical comics were very cool, what with how the pictures moved.

The food wouldn't all fit, so he took out his backpack.

The backpack was patches of green and brown. The brown was like bark, and the green was like birch leaves, not a drawn pattern, but cloth overlaying the bark, the leaves overlaying each other in places, every vein of the leaves clear to see. What little stitching he'd included was aphids and lines of ants, and the fob to each zipper was an insect, brass, and in perfect detail.

He'd transfigured the backpack from sticks and leaves, and when he walked with it, it made a soft rustling sound like wind in the trees.

He filled it with as many books it would hold, which gave him room in his trunk for the food.

Hermione said, "My parents want to meet you. They'll be on the other side of the barrier. But you have to act normal, okay."

"Don't worry, I'll tell them I'm normal."  
"Harry."

"I'll tell your dad all about my favorite football team. I don't have one, but he won't know that. What's that really popular one called? Manchester Unified? Are they good at the kicking?

"Harry," she said, more loudly.

"Don't worry. I'll be myself, just not the hyper version, and I'll be careful with my jokes."

The ride continued. They talked, and lost by turns to Ron at chess. Harry took a smooth stone from his pocket, which had once been a length of wood, and began transfiguring it.

A crystal. A glass butterfly. A live butterfly. A copy of the House Cup, which he jokingly proffered to Ron. A toy car, red with gold detailing. A woman in heels and a trench coat looking with an expression of quiet wonder at something hidden in her trench coat. A boat with three sails, crewed by owls in ruffed clothing like in old paintings. Hogwarts, every detail right, the towers and crenelations, the greenhouses, even Hagrid's Hut, which was a house with very high ceilings, but everyone called it a hut.

Hermione said, "You've gotten absurdly good at that," said Hermione.

Harry shrugged. "It's better than drawing. At home, I would always draw in the cupboard under the stairs."

"Why in the cupboard?" said Hermione.

"No reason."

Ron said, "You and Neville don't have brothers or sisters so you don't know. You wouldn't believe the places I've hidden to get a little privacy. Your own room is the first place anyone thinks to look."

Hermione said, "Harry's an only child."

Harry said, "I live with my cousin. He's about my age. We don't always get along. Ron and I talked about our families coming here on the train, but I suppose I never mentioned him to you."

As Ron went on about all the places he'd hidden, Harry looked at the castle in his hand, which had once been a stick. He'd known when he'd picked up the stick that there was something it wanted to be for him. He would set it on his shelf and look at it over the summer. It made sense that it would be Hogwarts. Of course it was Hogwarts. He'd been happier there than he'd ever been.

It wasn't Hogwarts.

He stood, and he set the castle on his seat. He sat next to Hermione, with her on his left, and said, "Neville, Ron, get in here. It'll be like a picture."

Ron sat on his right, Neville at the end next to Ron, but someone had to be at the end.

Hermione put an arm around Harry's shoulder and said, "Harry, you might as well hug me," so he put his left arm around her shoulder.

Ron and Neville both slung their arms over him as well, Neville's fingertips reaching his neck.

Harry said, "Ron, lean back a little. I need my wand arm free."

Ron leaned back, and Harry said, "You know," said Harry, "I'd never properly noticed another human being before. Inanimata Reformandam."

The castle changed into four little statuettes seated on a bench, the black-haired one grinning as the other three looked at him incredulously.

Neville, "How did, how did you get our expressions? You weren't even looking at us."

Hermione said, "I look like I need to use the loo."

Ron said, "You look like you're trying to figure out who to scold, so I'd say he captured your spirit. But Harry, fix my mouth, would you. I looked pummeled."

"It's perfect," said Harry.

And it was. He turned it over in his hands, and, before Hermione could badger him into changing it, he took a shirt from his trunk, wrapped it around the sculpture, and set it carefully in his trunk.

Harry said, "Hermione, can I have your phone number?"

She gave it to him, and Harry wrote it down in two places, knowing how he lost things. Hermione asked for his number, and Harry said, "It's better that you don't call me. My cousin might pick up, and he'd taunt me if I got calls from a girl." That wasn't the reason, but it would do. "I'll send owl the rest of you."

"Where's Hedwig?" said Neville.

"I sent her ahead. It's easier that way. She'll come in through my window tonight. I'm sure she understood."

When they reached the platform, Harry slung on his backpack and, with muttered incantation and a wave of his wand, gave his trunk wheels, the last spell he'd get to do until September first.

They made their goodbyes. Ron went in one direction, Neville in another, meeting their families on the magical side of the barrier, but Harry and Hermione went directly through it, into Kings Cross station.

There was a sort of bubble around the platform, the passing crowd giving it wide berth, not coming near or even looking, so the few people waiting at the edge of the bubble were very obvious.

Hermione made a beeline for a man and a woman standing together, both brown-haired, the man with grey at the temples.

Harry wanted to hang back, but he made himself walk half a step behind her.

Hermione ran forward into the arms of her parents. Harry stood a few feet off as they hugged and babbled.

The hug broke, and Hermione gestured to him and said, "Mum, Dad, This is Harry."

Harry stuck out his hand. "Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Hermione's Parents."

Hermione slapped her forehead and said, "Harry. That's not their names."

"Oh, right." Parents did have their own names. "Nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Granger. I'm Harry Potter."  
Mr. and Mrs. Granger shook his hand, then exchanged a glance.

Mr. Granger said, "Hermione's told us a lot about you."

She had? He smiled, but worried he wasn't doing it right. "It's a lot of work keeping her from doing her homework, but anything for friendship."

"Harry," said Hermione.

"I mean, it's a lot of work keeping her from revising her homework for the third time. Don't worry, she got top marks anyway. And she rocked the transfiguration exam."

They exchanged another glance. Mrs. Granger said, "You've been friends the whole year."  
"Pretty much. It didn't solidify until Halloween, but we've been talking since the first week."

They asked him questions about school, which Harry tried to answer seriously, and Mr. Granger said, "Where are you parents? I'd like to meet them, if possible."

The moment the words were out of Mr. Granger's mouth, his eyes widened and he clapped a hand over his mouth. His wife elbowed him.

"They're unavailable," said Harry. "I live with my Aunt and Uncle. My Uncle is probably here somewhere, but I'm sure he'll be in a hurry.

He looked around the station and did not see Uncle Vernon. Mr. Granger said, "I like your backpack."

"Thank you. I made it into spider silk, so it's very strong. It wasn't very hard to do once I had an example."

Harry and the Grangers talked about the trouble that scientists were having figuring out how to practically make things out of spider silk. Harry had lowered his voice and was in the process of telling them about acromantula silk, which was even stronger but couldn't be made in the 'normal' way due to its having special properties, when he saw Uncle Vernon at the edge of the bubble, purple-faced and mustached.

He'd wondered if Aunt Petunia or Dudley would come as well, but of course they hadn't.

Harry said, "Sorry, my Uncle's here. I have to go."

He pushed his trunk, and when Harry came near, his Uncle turned, leading him out of the station.

When they reached the car, Uncle Vernon popped the boot of his car, and Harry leveled his trunk into it.

Harry sat in the back seat, even though there was no one in the front passenger seat, and the only words spoken on the whole car ride were those of the radio.

When they were in the house, the door closed, Harry said, "I love doing magic-"

"Don't say that word," said Vernon.

"But I won't do any." Not that he was allowed to, but Uncle Vernon didn't know that. "And I made lots of friends. I even went to visit Hagrid for tea most weeks. You remember Hagrid. Some of those friends want to visit during the summer. But don't worry, I'll tell them not to come."

"They'd better not come," said Uncle Vernon.

"In return, I'll do the gardening and I'll make breakfast, but those will be my only chores. I'll keep my trunk in my room, and I'll keep everything in my room, even my wand. I'll read my books and do my written homework, but you'll never have to see it."

Uncle Vernon turned purple. "You're mad if you think you're not doing the dishes."

"Alright," said Harry. "I'll do the dishes. How about the rest of it?"

"All of your freakishness stays in the spare room?"

"Every bit," said Harry.

Uncle Vernon grunted. Harry nodded and carried his trunk up the stairs. It was heavier than when he'd first cast the Feather-Light Charm, but it was still quite light.

He set it in the middle of the bedroom, shut the door, and looked around the room.

Dudley's second bedroom, with Dudley's junk in the closet and on the floor. An old mattress in a simple frame. A small white-painted desk with scratches from a pocket knife.

The room had been such an incredible upgrade when he'd first moved into it. He'd hugged himself, overcome, feeling the luckiest boy in the world.

But after most of a year at Hogwarts, it was easy to see what it really was.

He set the sculpture of he and his friends on his desk and he opened his Transfiguration textbook to the first page, if only to remind himself that the last 10 months had not been a dream.

:::

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Accidentally added the wrong chapter earlier.
> 
> This is not quite the end of year one. There are still letters. But I am looking forward to Dobby and the start of year two. I've begun writing it, and Harry is taking the story down a path I have not seen before. I don't know how far from canon it will lead.
> 
> Please review. If you're enjoying this, please check out my self-published book, Monstrosity, by Jonathan Lake, available on Amazon for only 99 cents. I'll be eternally thankful if you review that as well.
> 
> The points are different because no one was caught at the astronomy tower after curfew. However, Gryffindor also had a very bad Quidditch season, and Harry lost a lot of points in his classes.
> 
> As a kid, I used to read in the storage space under the stairs. This was before I read my first Harry Potter book. It was very quiet and no one bothered me to do my homework or take out the recycling.


	6. The Letters of Hermione Granger, Year 1

The letters of Hermione Granger

Dear Mum and Dad,

I've been sorted into Gryffindor, like I wanted. The Sorting is done by a magic talking hat that looks into your mind. It told me I could be in any house but I probably wouldn't like Slytherin. With training, the Sorting Hat would make an excellent psychologist, I expect.

The castle is even more beautiful than I thought it would be, and all the ghosts seem very friendly except for one named Peeves and another named the Bloody Baron. The Gryffindor ghost is called nearly Headless Nick, (the axe was dull, he says) and he's a very nice gentleman.

I met Harry Potter on the train. You remember, the boy who stopped a dark wizard when he was a baby? He seemed nice but odd. He's in Gryffindor too.

I'm in a dorm room with three other girls, and we sleep in beautiful four-poster beds out of a fairy tale. So far we all get along.

This owl is one of the school post owls. If you give her a treat, she'll stay a while and you can send a letter back with her. If not, you can mail me back in the normal way.

Love, Hermione.

#

#

Dear Mum and Dad,

Classes have started. The Professor for History of Magic has a sleepy voice, but if I force myself to pay attention to the content, it's very interesting. The Professor for Potions can be a bit mean, but the older students tell me he knows his subject fabulously well. The Professor for Defence Against the Dark Arts has a horrible stutter. The older students tell me there's a curse on the position, and it makes it hard to get good Professors for it.

Everything else is great. I especially like Charms and Transfiguration. We tried to change matchsticks into needles, and I was the first to make any changes to my matchstick.

We're not supposed to practice spells without supervision until we're older, but Harry Potter does it for hours after class every day. He only ever practices Transfiguration, which is supposed to be the most dangerous subject to practice on your own. And worse, he's not just practicing spells we've learned in class. He's experimenting. He gets a lot of detentions for it, but I don't think he cares.

He asks me for help, (with his experiments, not his homework) and I say no. I'm not sure if I like him or not. I definitely don't like his friend Ronald.

I should've mentioned this earlier, but the Professor for History of Magic is a ghost.

Love, Hermione

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Dear Mum and Dad,

Yesterday was Halloween, and it was a big day. Ronald insulted me after Charms, and Harry told him off for it. He said that he and I were friends and that he and Ronald weren't friends anymore. Then we made friends with Neville too.

Harry wasn't at dinner because he'd gotten lost in the corridors, and then Professor Quirrell ran into the Great Hall and said a troll had gotten into the castle. I was worried for Harry, so I told the staff table that he was likely wandering the castle.

The troll found him before they did, but it was alright because Harry made friends with the troll and they had a sing-along. He said he wanted to keep it, and he was upset when the Professors moved it out of the castle. I guess trolls aren't as dangerous as I thought.

Afterward, Ronald apologized to me. Or actually, he didn't, but he acted sorry and he promised he wouldn't insult me again, so I told Harry that he and Ronald were friends again. I think we're all friends now. Harry, Neville, Ronald and I. We'll see how it goes.

I'm getting along with my roommates, but I'm not good friends with any of them.

Ronald says that now that I'm one of Harry friends, I have to take my turn going with him to his detentions. I've claimed his Transfiguration detentions because Ronald says they turn into tutoring sessions a lot of the time. Harry has gotten much better at Transfiguration than I am, but it's still one of my favorite classes.

Love, Hermione

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Dear Mum and Dad,

Harry is not a bad influence. He never hurts anyone or says anything mean. He's very nice. It's just that he likes to sit at his desk all hunched up, like the letter V and put his feet on his desk. And he doesn't understand about rules intended to to keep us safe, like not experimenting with spells.

I'm a good influence on him, but he does have some sense.

There's a very annoying bully named Draco Malfoy who challenged him to a duel, and Harry turned him down very well. Draco was about ready to hide under his bed out of embarrassment by the time Harry was done saying no! It was great, and no one could tell whether Harry had done it on purpose or if he was just being earnest.

Harry very often doesn't know things you'd think he would, but other times he actually does know but pretends not to. It's very hard to know when is which. I think that's why he does it, and also because he thinks it's funny.

Neville is a nice boy who stutters a lot and Ronald isn't bad once you get to know him. He's very good at chess so I think he must be smarter than he seems. I do talk about them.

I will try to make friends with the other girls.

I like Hogwarts very much, but I'm looking forward to going home for Christmas. Early in the break I would like to buy presents for my friends and mail them to them. Just small things, especially since I don't know if they can reciprocate. Ronald has very little allowance and I don't know about Harry.

Now that I'm friends with Harry, I'm learning about a lot of secret passages and rooms hidden around the castle. Harry's found a lot of them, but he never remembers afterward where they are. I'm trying to make a map, but the castle keeps moving.

I saw a Quidditch match. It's a little like water polo, except the players fly on broomstick in the air and each team has three goals. There are two more balls that can be used to hit players, like dodge-ball, and final ball is called the Snitch. The Snitch flies around and is hard to catch, but once it is caught the game is over and the team that caught it gets 150 points. It looks very dangerous, but I suppose that there are probably lots of safety precautions that are hard to see.

I said that the game might be better without the Snitch and Ronald said that was mental, and Harry told Ronald that he wasn't allowed to call me mental. Ronald said he hadn't called me mental, he'd said that what I'd said was mental, and Harry said that he wasn't allowed to be mad at people for being wrong, especially if he couldn't explain logically why they were wrong.

Usually Harry seems like the most immature boy in the school, but every once in a while he'll say something like that.

We had a good discussion, and Ronald admitted that the Seeker (that's the only player who's allowed to catch the Snitch) did make the other players a little too irrelevant and there should be some slight rule changes.

Gryffindor lost the game. The House that wins the Quidditch Cup usually wins the House Cup, so I wish we'd won.

Looking forward to seeing you soon,

Merry nearly Christmas, Hermione

P.S. This is Harry's owl, Hedwig. I find her very nice. She likes to be stroked, and even to be scratched slightly behind the ears.

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Dear Mum and Dad,

I miss you already, but I'm very happy to be back at Hogwarts. It's good to do magic again.

Harry got an invisibility cloak for Christmas. It's a family heirloom being returned to him, and it's very interesting. I wondered if it was just very good camouflage, but light passes through perfectly, and as far as we can tell, it doesn't change the color of the light at all. However, if you shine different colored lights at it from different sides, they don't combine in the middle like you'd think they would.

I told you that our Potions Professor is a little scary and Neville is a nervous wreck around him. I'm trying to help him prepare for the class, but it's not going very well. Harry has decided that we should get him used to Professor Snape, so, to help Neville, he's made a Professor Snape mask. It's very lifelike, and Ronald is a good mimic. I'm a little afraid of how Professor Snape will respond when he finds out about it.

Love, Hermione

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Dear Mum and Dad,

Professor Snape has found out about the Professor Snape mask. He told Harry to hand it in, so Harry wore it to class. Professor Snape usually arrives just when class is about to start, and when he got there, Harry was standing at the front, lecturing about how potions is the best subject. Harry got five detentions.

A lot of people asked him about it, so Harry's made more masks and he's started selling them. I told him not to. The Headmaster bought one.

Professor Snape ignores Neville now. He's too busy with Harry.

I'm enjoying Astronomy much more now that I've learned to cast a Warming Charm. I've decided to learn a lot of charms ahead of time. Harry's detentions are very useful that way, because if I go with him, my practice is supervised.

I've been reading about goblin wars, and I have to say I'm a little surprised that, after all that fighting, wizards let goblins control their money.

Love, Hermione

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Dear Mum and Dad,

Skiing and swimming both sound like a lot of fun. There's been a lot of snow here in Scotland, so if I had to choose, I would say swimming. I don't see why there couldn't be skiing at Hogwarts. It would be very easy for them to set up a slope.

I've decided I'll choose Ancient Runes as one of my electives. I know I don't have to choose until the end of my second year, but it's never too early to start planning. It's fascinating how there's such a link between language and magic, and I'd like to understand it better.

Easter is coming, so it's time to get serious about studying. Harry looked very funny when I told him that. I'm afraid my herbology is not as good as I would like. I remember all about the plants, but I have difficulty recognizing them from pictures.

Professor McGonagall told me that so far I've earned more house points than any other Gryffindor, even Percy Weasley, who is a prefect.

Love, Hermione

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Dear Mum and Dad,

Of course you can meet Harry. Just please understand beforehand that he doesn't mean it.

This is a secret, so if you meet anyone's parents, don't tell them, but Harry, Neville, Ron and I got to help with a dragon relocation program. He was just a baby dragon, and Harry turned him into a brick for safekeeping. That's a ridiculous thing for a first-year to be able to do, but Harry did it. He's getting very good at transfiguration.

Remember how I told you at Christmas about Hagrid and his inedible rock cakes? Harry's figured out a way to eat them. He casts a softening charm on them. I don't think it's smart, but he says he hasn't had any indigestion. I haven't gotten the courage to try it myself.

Spring here is so very beautiful. I wish we were allowed into the forest. Sometimes in Herbology we go on walks a little ways in, but we're not allowed to go in otherwise. They should fence part of it in and make it safe.

See you soon.

Love, Hermione

:::

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of the first year. I said at the start that this story is pure lolz with no pretension to plot. Maybe it should've stayed that way, but it hasn't. There should, however, always be lots of lolz.


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